Artificial
by Jade Hunter
Summary: Rommie thinks on herself, her crew, and on the tragedy of being able to feel.


**Title:** Artificial

**Author:** Jade Hunter

**Disclaimer:** The characters and properties of _Andromeda_ do not belong to me. All quotes I got from as well as a bit of technical information, and from also.

A.N: For some reason, I was feeling very…reflective, lately, and had to write this.

* * *

I am _Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge AI model GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-182_. 

I am the_ Andromeda Ascendant_.

I am a _Heavy Cruiser_, one of the very few _Glorious Heritage Class_ ships from the original Commonwealth, from three hundred years ago, frozen in the event horizon of a black hole in the Hephaistos System.

Despite some doubts from anti-android groups, I am fully capable of feeling emotions.

In the Commonwealth Year – CY, first known as Coronation Year but later changed – of 7309, High Guard Frigate, an Artificial Intelligence Rights Activist said, "You ask why we give our ships' computers normal emotions. Do you really want a warship incapable of loyalty? Or of love?"

An admirable quote, one that convinced many that, in some cases, artificial intelligence was needed.

I wonder, though…

Did anyone ever ask a High Guard warship if they wanted to feel emotions?

Oh, there are positive points to experiencing human emotions, to be sure. Such feelings as happiness and pride, as well as affection and loyalty and hope, are positively enlightening. Sadness and pain are hard to bear, of course, but they are also acceptable, as it was long noted that humans – and many other species – must go through hardship to learn a lesson of life.

There is one emotion, however, that I would think that AIs would do well without.

Love.

Sani Nax Rifati, a High Guard Supreme Commander from the CY 4279, stated thus: "If hope is the engine of the soul, then duty is the navigator…and love is the fuel."

According to the Maru's records, in the CY 9942 – approximately one hundred and fifty-eight years after I was frozen in time – a Wayist Physicist named Michio von Kerr stated, "We say atoms are bound by weak attractors. Why not admit the truth: the universe is held together by love."

There are many species that do not believe in love, species such as the Chichins, the Magog, and the Nightsiders, to name a few.

There are also many that can feel fondness, though it is not as strong as the bonds of love, examples of such species being the Kalderans, the Perseids, the Than-Thre-Kulls, the Umbrites, and the Vedrans.

There are relatively few species capable of natural love, Humans being one of them, and, to a lesser extent, the Nietzscheans.

And the artificial intelligent warships and androids.

Ours, however, no matter how strong our feelings are, no matter what we do, will always be considered artificial.

Even those that believe I have emotions, that I can feel, do not stop to think that perhaps the emotions I feel are as valid as the ones they feel.

Even my crew, the ones who interact with me all day, think so.

It hurts.

To know that my affection for them – yes, even Tyr – is considered to be somehow less than their feelings for each other.

To know that they thought Maggie simply had a glitch in her programming, and became insane because of how it affected her.

To know that they believe that what Gabriel and I felt was simply a need to be in the company of a similar 'species', for lack of a better word.

To know that Dylan will never understand my feelings, never acknowledge them.

It hurts.

Because I know that I love my crew.

Because I know that Maggie was driven insane by love, her love for her Captain and what she saw as his shame for their relationship.

Because I know that Gabriel loved me, enough to go against the _Balance of Judgment_, and I loved Gabriel…enough to kill him.

Because I know that I love Dylan with everything I am.

And they will never see that.

He will never see.

For ours is, to them, an artificial life.

Ours are, to them, artificial emotions.

Ours is, to them, an artificial love.

* * *

Jade Hunter 


End file.
